Forum Discussion
Audio Desync / Loading
Hello MatthewMills-20 .
You have described perfectly and precisely a major bug that I encountered on several of my recent projects. It was so bad that my clients rejected the SCORM export: the start of the audio/voice-over tracks is (sometimes) out of sync, meaning they cut off at the end of the timeline; the clips overlap for the same reason; and some audio tracks sound like they have an ‘echo’???. I’ve looked for a solution but haven’t found one in the file. I can’t hear anything wrong in the Preview. The strangest thing is that this does NOT affect ALL my projects. But on the latest project, there were two of us working in parallel, each from home (3 modules for me and 3 modules for him), and all the modules were affected. And the strangest thing of all is that I don’t hear much mention of this massive, catastrophic audio bug in discussion threads like this one. Really odd.
In any case, I don’t have a solution while we wait for the Articulate team to fix this issue, which is preventing me from working properly. But I’ve found a workaround that works. By downgrading Storyline to version 3.106.35891.0 from Dec 8th 2025 (which is the version I’m using right now), all the audio problems disappear. Of course, this ‘old’ version doesn’t support two ‘new’ features (at least). The ‘click to pause’ for videos and the ‘rename a trigger (JS)’. This prevents you from opening your current file with this version. However, if this is the case, you can “delete” your video(s) and JS triggers, open the file with the old version, and then restore your videos and triggers. It works, and even if it’s not ideal, it saved me from a nervous breakdown.
I hope this helps. Let me know. I’m really keen to hear a second, documented opinion on this bug.
Hey ThierryEMMANUEL,
Thanks for jumping in and sharing your experience! I completely understand how frustrating this can feel, especially when the behavior impacts client delivery.
While we recommend authoring on the latest Storyline versions for stability and fixes, this is helpful insight and something we’d like to investigate further. Since you're seeing this issue across multiple projects and versions, do you mind uploading a sample .story file for testing? You can share that file here in the discussion or through a support case.
In the meantime, I have some follow-up questions to help us troubleshoot this better:
- Are you using multiple short clips on the Timeline, Triggered audio, or both?
- Are your audio files externally sourced, AI-generated, or a mix of both?
- Does the behavior occur consistently across all browsers?
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Hello StevenBenassi . It’s not easy to answer all your questions because, as you know, customer feedback is often vague: “It’s awful! Nothing works!” What’s more, I’m just the storyliner. The end customer is my client’s customer, for whom I’m building the module. I don’t always have all the information. The details I do know, I mentioned in my first message. I tried several solutions WITHIN the file, but I stopped looking when using an older version of SL ‘resolved’ the issue.
I can’t really share a file with you, for confidentiality reasons. If I change a single thing (for confidentiality), your test to find and reproduce the problem will be worthless.
Yes, as you suggested to Matthew, I’ve turned my short clips into single long clips to avoid overlap.
No, I haven’t added a “Play Audio” trigger to every audio clip because that’s just a workaround, not a solution to the problem. That’s not how it’s supposed to work… normally, and certainly a few months ago.
Yes and yes. On one project, the voice-overs were actual recordings of actors. On the other, 100% AI Storyline.
As for browsers, I’ll try to find out. However, one customer said they had NEVER encountered this problem (in other words, their browser doesn’t seem to be the cause, as it never had been before). The other customer… told us the trick of using the old version (in other words, they had already encountered the problem internally).
My gut feeling was that it was down to the LMS. But do they have the same type of LMS? I don’t know yet.
In any case, thank you for your technical explanations. I’ll sound more knowledgeable the next time I come across the problem. But I still won’t have a solution.
Best regards.
Thierry
Hey ThierryEMMANUEL,
Thank you for following up!
I completely understand the challenges here, especially when you're working through layers of client feedback and confidentiality constraints.
The fact that you’re seeing this behavior across different types of audio (recorded and AI-generated), and potentially across different LMS environments, suggests there could be multiple factors at play. Possibly including how the course is being delivered or loaded in the LMS, rather than something isolated strictly within the .story file itself. However, we have seen some Storyline bugs that only emerge once a course is distributed through an LMS.
Also, you're right that workarounds like adding Triggers or restructuring audio can feel like a temporary solution. That’s exactly why we’d want to take a closer look. That said, given the complexity and the number of variables involved, this is a great opportunity for our support engineers to dig in more closely with you. I've opened a support case on your behalf so they can have a closer look at this issue. Just a quick note that anything you share with our team in a case is kept confidential. We regularly remove user files from our systems, and we're also happy to sign an NDA upon request.
You're in excellent hands working one-on-one with them, and they should be connecting with you soon!
Articulate hasn't responded to my comment below, have you heard any more about this? I don't think I can use updated versions until I know for certain this has been fixed.
If it wasn't for some of my courses needing translated into multiple languages, I would band-aid the problem with the add triggers route. I can't, though, because I really need to see the waveforms to adjust the animation timing to each language. And creating a single audio file is also difficult because I'm using a combination of V2 and V3 models in ElevenLabs for different things and it's just too taxing to patchwork all of that with every single slide and every single language.
Time to copy/paste all my JS and downgrade. Goodbye JS labels, it was fun for a hot second :(.Hi NicholeSande365,
Thank you so much for reaching out and sharing your experience and concerns around this issue. I've opened a support case on your behalf and escalated it to our engineers who will take a thorough look at what's going on. They'll follow up first via email for further troubleshooting. We appreciate your patience as we look into this!
StevenBenassi, I have noticed an increase in the same issues with our audio in Storyline: it either gets clipped or delayed when viewed. We have practiced adding a buffer before and after the audio on the timeline. And still having the issue.
Hello CarrieAnders421,
I understand that even when adding a buffer before and after audio narration, it still seems to get clipped when published. Gosh, that's frustrating! I'm happy to learn more.
- Are your audio files externally sourced, AI-generated, or a mix of both?
- What browser are your learners using to view your course? Do they experience this in an incognito window?
- Are you experiencing this in multiple files or just this one?
I'm curious if you experience this behavior when testing out your course in SCORM Cloud or when publishing to Review 360. We'd be happy to have our talented Support Engineers weigh in within a support case.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Hi LucianaPiazza,
1. All our audio files are external and inserted on the timeline. We record our own audio file.
2. We internal users use Chrome and Edge; however, I am not sure what our external users are using. We recommend Chrome. However, they would use any browser such as Edge, Chrome, Firefox, and maybe some users who have Safari.
I've noticed it when previewing my work or doing a peer review in Review 360. I have not tested it in Incognito mode. I will give that a try.
3. It is noted in several files across all our developers' files. I have personally checked a few, and the audio has plenty of time between audio on the timeline.
Do I create a case in support and send one of our files?
Thank you.
StevenBenassi I'm here to report I am having this same audio timing issue with the newest version of Storyline.
For me, this is happening in the 360 Review player. I have not yet uploaded this file to the LMS. I will try that and report back. For now:
1. My timelines have at most 3 different audio clips that are at most ~30 seconds long. Their timing is dependent on their placement on the timeline and no other triggers.
2. Each slide's first audio clip is placed at the 1 second mark at the earliest.
3. The audio clips were uploaded from my hard drive (not using built-in AI audio features).
4. The overlapping/de-syncing during the review is inconsistent. Sometimes it overlaps nearly every slide, sometimes viewers are having zero problems within the same browser.
5. This is happening (and sometimes not happening) in Chrome and Edge, again inconsistently on the same browser and computer for the same people.
6. This is a bug that seems to be particularly pronounced using the newer version of Storyline. I have had previous projects in previous versions with bigger files and higher quantity of separate audio clips for which this problem did not occur.
Some workarounds already mentioned, such as creating a single audio file or creating timeline triggers for media playback, while it might put a band-aid the issue, it does put a significant wrench into the translation process. This project is going to be translated into 7 or so different languages and these workarounds, like having to adjust not only asset timing but also trigger timing to account for length differences across languages, are going to be taxing on my time and attention. I also would prefer not to downgrade to a previous version because I'm using new features (which are quite cool, thank you, love the JavaScript-related updates in particular).
Has there been any more investigation into the cause of this with the new versions? I understand what's been said about latency in calling for separate clips, but, again, I have not encountered this level of de-sync before the April 2026 version of SL.
